


The Stiles, the Witch, and the Werewolves

by OneStepShort



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, I changed one little detail, I don't know what they are but they're there, Isaac Lahey & Stiles Stilinski Friendship, Isaac Lahey is a Little Shit, Isaac is a Witch, Magic has rules, Season 1 of Teen Wolf, Stiles is Confused as usual, but the plot is basically the same
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 16:53:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 13,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24000127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneStepShort/pseuds/OneStepShort
Summary: “Salt and burn, the first rule of the supernatural. Also happens to be the first rule of my boss’s cooking.” Isaac gave the two of them a triumphant smirk..-Scott and Isaac both work at the Animal clinic. Scott is Deaton’s medical protege. Isaac is his magical one.
Relationships: Derek Hale & Isaac Lahey, Isaac Lahey & Scott McCall, Isaac Lahey & Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 5
Kudos: 32





	1. Magic Bullet

**Author's Note:**

> I really love the idea of Magic in Teen Wolf and the mythology of the druids and the Darach, so I decided to play around a little bit with that and this was the result. I absolutely love Isaac in the show, this version of him is a little different because he has a radically different backstory (being a witch).

“Stiles?” 

Stiles whipped around rapidly. He was still holding the serrated saw, with Derek across from him, shirtless and looking about two minutes away from death. 

He recognized the kid in the entranceway to the clinic. It was Isaac, the quiet one in his chemistry class. He was the only kid that actually got along with Mr. Harris, because he somehow managed to be completely unfazed by his general creepiness. 

“This isn’t what it looks like,” he said automatically. Although, he had no idea what it looked like. A fucked up porno, maybe. A  _ really  _ fucked up porno. 

“Get out,” Derek ordered, with all his usual charm. Isaac took this as an invitation to step in. 

“I work here, asshole. Also, what the hell happened to you?” He asked, coming to the examination table. Stiles self-consciously put the saw down. 

“He got shot,” Stiles supplied. Derek shot him a withering look. 

Isaac went to Derek, getting into his personal space in a way that made Stiles question the kid’s self preservation instincts. “Let me see it.”

Derek pulled his arm inward, trying to scare Isaac off with an intense glare. 

Isaac just rolled his eyes, and now Stiles was seriously worried about his mental state, because Derek looked like he’d rip him in half if he wasn’t currently poisoned. 

“Relax, I’m not gonna  _ poke  _ it. I think I can help.” 

“Trust me,” Derek told him, “you can’t.” 

“I’m a vet,” Isaac countered. “Well, Vet in training, but still, that applies to werewolves.” 

Derek hid his surprise well. Stiles did not. 

“You’re in on this, too?” He spluttered. 

Isaac pointed at Derek, which made Derek look somewhat offended. “Triskele says Hale says Werewolf,” he said matter-of-factly, like that explained everything. “Now, let me see it.”

Derek regarded him for a moment before reluctantly holding out his arm. Isaac took it, pulling it towards him to examine it more carefully. With one hand on Derek’s wrist, he took his other hand and lightly poked the bullet with his pinky. This caused Derek to yelp in a very unmanly way, and Stiles to smother a laugh with his hand. If looks could kill, both Isaac and Stiles would definitely be goners. 

“I lied about not poking it.” Isaac shrugged apologetically and let Derek’s hand go. His pinky was covered in the strange bluish black fluid that was coming out of Derek’s infected arm. He brought it up to his nose and gave it a quick sniff, before sticking his pinky in his mouth. 

He smacked his tongue against his lips a few times to gauge the taste. “Nordic blue Monkshood? That’s the good stuff. Top shelf, very expensive.” He took his finger out of his mouth and wiped it on his jeans, ignoring the horrified looks Derek and Stiles were giving him. Stiles’ was much more expressive. Isaac started rummaging through the clinic’s cabinets, pulling out a strange assortment of supplies. 

“Why does an animal clinic even  _ have  _ a blow torch?” Stiles muttered. 

“Is that salt?” Derek asked. 

“Yep, the kosher kind.” Isaac patted the cold, metal table. “Come on, hop up.” To demonstrate, Isaac clambered on top of it, settling into a cross-legged position on the surface. He took the blow torch and sparked it, using it to sterilize a pair of medical tongs. 

Derek reluctantly sat on the table next to him. “Whatever you’re going to do, do it fast.” 

Isaac took that advice to heart, taking Derek’s arm and shoving the end of the tongs into his wound without warning. Derek grimaced, and Stiles suppressed a gag. The sound of the metal moving around in the flesh was enough to make him queasy. 

“Stiles, hold out your hand.” Isaac’s head was bent in concentration. Stiles did as he asked, and Isaac dropped something wet and cold into his palm. 

“Ah, ah, ah, that’s disgusting.” Stiles made a face at the compressed brassy metal, still covered in Derek’s blood. The bullet was a lot bigger than Stiles had expected. 

“Pretty Nasty slug,” Isaac commented. Derek was looking considerably paler now, if that was possible, probably from the pain of having that gouged out of him with very little ceremony. Stiles wasn’t sure what to do with it, so he slipped it into his pocket. He grimaced as he wiped the blood out of the creases in his palm and onto his pants. 

“You know why wolfsbane works so well on werewolves?” Isaac started pouring a thin layer of salt into Derek’s open wound, causing him to tense in pain, gripping the edge of the table. “It’s a plant used in illusion magic.” 

“Like protecting your sister’s body _ ,”  _ Stiles realized. 

“And shapeshifting is a form of illusion. The most intense form, actually.” Isaac lit the blow torch. Derek squeezed his eyes shut. 

“So the werewolf form, that’s just an illusion?” Stiles asked, hoping to distract him from what was about to come.

“No, the human one is.” Isaac started burning, and Derek started screaming. 

It was over faster than Stiles expected. Derek started falling off the table, and Stiles moved to steady him, which proved to be a mistake, because Derek was  _ heavy.  _

They both went down, but Stiles managed to slow Derek’s fall enough that they more...sank to the floor. Derek was out cold. But his arm…

Stiles watched as the blue poison left his veins, returning to normal. The bullet hole healed, and in mere seconds, it looked completely normal. Stiles eased Derek against the corner of the cabinets, making sure he was still sitting up. He was a little clammy, but not feverish. Stiles counted that as a win.

“Derek?” He tentatively batted at his stubbly cheek. “Derek, you alive?”

The werewolf’s eyes fluttered open, briefly flashing their cold steel blue. “Never again,” he muttered. 

“Then don’t get shot.” Stiles held out his hand. Derek glanced at it like it was a dead rat, before rolling his eyes with a sigh. He took his hand and allowed Stiles to help pull him upright, to get his legs back underneath him.

“How’d you know that would work?” Stiles asked. 

“Salt and burn, the first rule of the supernatural. Also happens to be the first rule of my boss’s cooking.” Isaac gave the two of them a triumphant smirk from his perch on the table. 

Derek pulled his shirt back on. He was looking much better now than he did five minutes ago, the color returning to his face. “Thanks,” he said grudgingly. 

Isaac smiled. “Happy to help. So, Scott’s a werewolf?” 

Stiles blinked. “How’d you know?” 

Isaac shrugged. “He used to be a cat person.” 

“Okay, I got the bullet - Isaac?” Scott stopped cold in the doorway, looking at the three of them, holding the bullet up awkwardly. 

“Someone showed up late to the party,” Stiles deadpanned. 

“Isaac, what are you doing here?” Scott approached the table, and Isaac was still sitting on top of it like a maniac, and part of Stiles wanted to tell him to get down and stand like a normal person, and the other part was just enjoying the fact that he finally wasn’t the weirdest person in the room. 

“Um, I work here?” 

Scott floundered. “Well, yeah, I know that, but it’s after hours.” 

“I was working on the expense report. And I clearly need to take the earphones out every once in a while because these two,” He pointed an accusing finger and Stiles and Derek, “decided to break and enter.” 

“Technically Scott told us where the key was so…” Stiles looked to Derek for support. “It’s a little less illegal.” 

“Deaton trusts you with the expense report?” Scott asked, looking somewhat hurt. 

“Don’t take it personally,” Isaac shrugged. “I’m better at math. And I was here first.” 

Scott turned to Derek, who was looking increasingly tired of the shenanigans of teenagers. 

“Look, we saved your life,” Scott pointed out. 

“Technically I did.” Isaac ignored the dirty look Scott gave him, a shit eating smile on his face. 

“So you’re going to leave us alone,” Scott said firmly,. “And if you don’t, I’m gonna go back to Allison’s dad, and I’m gonna tell him everything. 

Stiles wasn’t sure how he felt about that. At the beginning of the day, he was about as thrilled to see Derek as he would be to see a fungal infection, but after spending a good few hours with the guy dying in his front seat, he realized that Derek wasn’t much more than a floundering kid, who had  _ no one _ to look out for him. And, surprisingly, he didn’t want him to die. 

“You’re gonna trust them, you think they can help you?” There was anger and bitterness in Derek’s voice, and Stiles could tell it came from a wound much deeper and older than the bullet in his arm. 

“They’re a lot freaking nicer than you are!” Scott countered, and Stiles tried to bite down on his cringe at how much Scott sounded like a whiny teenager. 

Derek’s eyes hardened. “I can show you exactly how nice they are.” He walked around the table and pulled Scott roughly out of the room, leaving Stiles alone with Isaac. 

Isaac sucked in a breath. “That was dramatic,” He commented. He hopped off the table and started putting his things away. Stiles just watched him, unsure. 

“Thanks for pulling our asses out of the fire, there.” Stiles shoved his hands into his pockets. “Really did not want to chop off an arm, tonight.”

“Do you think you could have?” Isaac asked, genuinely curious. 

Stiles considered that. “I’d like to think so,” he said finally. “If it would have saved his life. I think I’d have done the right thing.” 

Isaac smiled at him, a soft, authentic smile that Stiles had never seen on the guy before. Granted, he’d never really  _ looked  _ at him, before. 

He grabbed a notepad and a sharpie, scribbling something down on it before tearing off the page and giving it to Stiles. 

“What’s this?” Stiles unfolded it, staring at the ten digits in blockly, angular handwriting. Obviously he  _ knew  _ what it was, the real question was, why? 

“My personal number. In case your friend gets shot again.” 

“Why not just give it to him?” Stiles asked. 

Isaac shrugged. “He’s not my type.” 

Stiles was left, mouth agape, as Isaac walked out. 

_ Guess I am attractive to gay guys.  _ Stiles pumped a fist in the empty room.


	2. Sparked

Witches and werewolves don’t get along. 

At least, that was what most of the legends said. Isaac’s mentor was a druid, but Isaac wasn’t. He was something much more volatile. His power didn’t come from wisdom, it came from a raw, untamed spark that he constantly experimented with. But he always had help. 

_ Magic moves through matter.  _ That was his mantra. Which was why most of his afternoons were spent in the woods, negotiating with the plants and insects and rocks in the earth. “Negotiate” was really the only word that could describe it, because the art of witchcraft wasn’t really about control. It was learning to speak the language of every animal, vegetable, or mineral you could find.

His negotiation with an especially stubborn maggot was cut short, however, when a shirtless and barefoot Derek Hale came barrelling through the woods. 

He skidded to a stop in front of Isaac. “What are you doing here?” he demanded. 

Isaac was fairly sure he wasn’t on Hale property, so he decided he had every right to be snippy. 

“I’m  _ working.”  _ Seriously, he was going to the same places he’d been going to for years, but everyone was acting like  _ he  _ was the intruder. “Why are you running around with no shoes?”  __

“You need to get out of these woods, there are hunters here.” Derek grabbed his arm, pulling Isaac up off the ground. 

“Wait wait wait,” Isaac untangled himself once he was standing. “What the hell happened to you?” 

“What?” Derek was agitated, impatient.   


“Your aura.” Isaac waved a hand at Derek’s general being. “You’re sizzling like chili oil in a frying pan.” Now  _ that  _ was going on Isaac’s list of pick-up lines. Danny still owed him that fake ID, for the club. Not that he never went out anyway. It’s not hard for a witch to trick a bouncer. 

“I was shocked. Repeatedly. By  _ hunters,  _ which is why we need to go.” Derek started pulling him along, again. 

“Alright! Alright, jeez.” Isaac shouldered his backpack. It was an old canvas knapsack, one that used to belong to Deaton. His literal bag of tricks. 

“Do you have a car?” Derek asked. 

“No.” Isaac had a scooter. Which was all sorts of nerdy and embarrassing, but he rode that thing like a champ. 

“Then we run.” 

.-

Isaac’s version of running was a lot slower and more pathetic than Derek’s, but surprisingly, Derek stayed at his pace, instead of abandoning him and running for the hills. Wolves were pack animals, by nature. It made sense that after an attack, Derek would stay near an ally. The fact that that ally was a teenage witch he just met wasn’t exactly ideal, but, you work with what you got. 

“Stop, Stop,” Isaac panted, out of breath. “I’m getting a call.” 

“What part of ‘Hunters with automatic weapons’ do you not understand?” 

“Don’t they have, like, a moral code or something?” Isaac looked at the caller ID. 

“Not these ones.” Derek scanned the woods behind them. He knew they’d be difficult to track, with him barefoot and Isaac light-footed and nimble, but he also knew that Kate was, to put it mildly, a psychotic murdering bitch. 

“Stiles?” Isaac asked into the phone. 

“Yeah it’s me. Hey, can you get a hold of Scott?” 

“No I haven’t tried. Wait, hang on I’m getting another call.” Isaac switched lines. 

Deaton’s normally calm voice was tinged with worry “Hi Isaac, can you get a hold of Scott?”. 

Isaac rolled his eyes and covered the receiver. “No, but when I do I’m gonna kill him.” 

.-

Isaac called Stiles back to ask for a ride. They had only met once, but apparently they had already reached the “Hey can you come pick me and your weird perpetually shirtless werewolf acquaintance up from the middle of the woods?” stage of their relationship. 

“Careful, I think some of your blood is still on the shotgun seat,” Stiles quipped as Derek closed the door behind him. Isaac had climbed over into the “backseat” which was less of a seat and more of a cesspit. 

“Just shut up and drive.” 

“So you’re a Rhianna fan, nice.” Stiles started the car. “Not my cup of tea, but I don’t judge.”

“I spent four hours dealing with your music tastes. Made me wish the wolfsbane worked faster.” Damn. Derek was merciless. 

“Yeah, well I had to deal with your existence,” Stiles shot back. 

After a while on the road, driving toward the bus station where Derek had an emergency locker, because apparently he was Jason Bourne in his spare time, Derek suddenly turned back to Stiles. 

“What?” He demanded. 

“What?” Stiles briefly took his eyes off the road to look at Derek. 

“Your anxiety is stinking up the car.” 

Stiles sighed. “Okay, first of all, it’s weird that you know that, and second, I’m anxious by nature, all right? You saw me the other day.” 

“You’re avoiding the question.” Isaac wondered why Derek would push the issue. Why he would care at all how Stiles felt. 

Stiles relented. “I think I may have done a bad thing.” 

Derek raised his eyebrows. 

“Lydia saw the Alpha at the DVD store. She caught a picture of it, on her camera phone.” 

“Could you tell who it was?” Derek asked.

“No, it was still in wolf form. Not like a regular wolf, like a gigantic humanoid wolf.” 

Derek swore under his breath. 

“I stole her phone, and I deleted the video. She’ll probably just pass it off as part of her valium haze.” 

The relief in Derek’s features was visible. “That’s good.” 

“No, it’s not.” Stiles' voice raised a little. “I have to lie to her. I’m lying to every single person in my life, and now I have to lie to Lydia too. And Scott ditched me. I needed him to help me figure this out, and now I can’t find him, and that thing, that thing could rip him to pieces and I -” 

“Hey.” Derek was suddenly much softer than usual. “Scott’s okay. He’s not going to kill his own Beta.” 

“You didn’t see it.” Stiles’ shook his head. “It was bigger than Jackson’s car, and my  _ dad  _ is out there, looking for it, and what if one day it decides it’s had enough of cops and eats him alive? What if it decides to go after us?” 

“Stiles.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Heart rate.” That was it. That was all Derek had to say. And Stiles started to calm down.

“Yeah. yeah, Okay.” Stiles took in a deep breath. “Okay.” 

_ Huh,  _ Isaac thought. 

.-

“Alright, here’s your shit.” Stiles came back with the duffel, tossing it to Derek, who started pulling out his spare clothes. 

“What now?” Isaac asked, leaning up over the seats. 

“Now,” Derek zipped up his bag, “I get out.” 

“Wait, hang on, you’re leaving?” Stiles asked. 

Derek rolled his eyes. “Not forever. I’m laying low.” And with that, he got out and left. 

Stiles ran a hand over his buzzed head. “He sucks at goodbyes.” 

Isaac crawled back over the seat and settled into shotgun. “He’ll be back,” he reassured. 

“He’d better.” Stiles turned the car around and took them home. 


	3. Steam, Fog, and Smoke

Derek came by the Animal clinic right as Isaac arrived to start his shift. 

“I need a favor,” he said, leaning up against his camaro, his hands tucked in his jacket pockets. 

Isaac shouldered his knapsack. “Nice to see you too.” 

Derek gave him an annoyed look. “I’ve heard rumors about people like you. People with magic. They say, you can look into a person’s mind. See their memories. You saw my aura that day, you knew I’d been electrocuted. I need you to do that for someone else.” 

Isaac exhaled. “I’ve never done it before. But I’ve seen it done. I can try.” 

“That’s all I need.” Derek opened up his passenger side door. 

He glanced back at the clinic. _Deaton’s gonna kill me._

“Fine.”

.-

Peter looked very different from when Isaac saw him last. It wasn’t just the burns, he was older, much older than he should have looked after seven years. 

_“Give me the knife, Isaac.” His father made a grabbing motion for Camden’s Army knife._

_“No!” Isaac shouted. “This is all I have, this is all I have left of him!”_

_Lahey grabbed Isaac’s wrist, squeezing hard. “Let go of it,” he ordered._

_Normally, Isaac would have. He would have let go of the knife and taken the beating, crawled away to lick his wounds. But grief had lit a fire in his heart, and he only clung to it tighter._

_“NO!” And suddenly instinct overtook him. He tapped into every ounce of pain in his young and rapid heart, and he concentrated on the knife._

_Magic moves through matter._

_The knife flew out of his hand and sailed through the air, leaving a deep, angry slash on his father’s cheek before settling back in Isaac’s hand. Lahey let him go and shoved him onto the ground. “You little -”_

_Isaac got up and ran out of the house before his father could finish that colorful metaphor._

_He didn’t stop running until he found himself at a certain granite boulder. There was still a faint carving of a rune there. And next to it...the rusty tinge of old blood. It was where Camden was killed. Isaac slumped onto the dirt next to it, putting a hand against the stone. He curled in on himself, and for the first time since his brother died, he let himself cry. He sobbed into his knees, his fingers still wrapped around the Army knife like it was a lifeline._

_He fell asleep in the dirt, at some point. Something cold and slimy dragged across his face. Isaac opened his eyes, which proved to be a mistake._

_There were worms. Everywhere. There were hundreds of them, crawling over his eyelids, his arms, wiggling under his T-shirt and up his cuffed jeans. Isaac opened his mouth to scream, and a worm crawled under his tongue._

_The unholy shriek that left him could have shattered glass. And it didn’t stop._

_Isaac screamed and writhed and frantically peeled fistfuls of worms off of his skin. He kept screaming, and running shaking hands all over himself, long after the hateful squirming things were gone. His voice went hoarse, but he kept going. It was like he didn’t know how to stop, like he couldn’t, like the stinking choking fear was the only thing he knew._

_Two hands suddenly took his shoulders and put Isaac in a vise-like hold._

_“You know, some of us are still trying to sleep.” The voice was laced with calculated apathy, young, but with a deceptive wisdom behind it._

_The scream died in Isaac’s throat. His eyes shifted back and forth, so wide with fear it almost hurt to keep them open, but he didn’t dare blink. The man was lanky, in fact, “man” was a more generous term, because he had the look of someone caught on the end of boyhood. He still held him with ease. Not that he had to try very hard, Isaac was practically paralyzed with fear._

_“Now, how did a little boy like you end up all the way out here?” A loose worm slithered out from under Isaac’s collar and onto the man’s hand. He glanced at it casually before taking a hand off Isaac’s shoulder to pluck to worm off. He crushed it into two even pieces between his thumb and finger and flicked the still wriggling bits back onto the ground._

_“More the strong silent type, are you?” The man’s smirk exaggerated his sharp features. All Isaac could seem to do was pant, in tandem with his racing heart._

_Suddenly, the man’s eyes flashed a brilliant gold. Isaac’s breath hitched, and he jerked back in fear._

_“There’s something special about you, isn’t there?” His eyes returned to normal. “I think there’s someone you should meet.”_

_.-_

The teenager standing with his nephew approached Peter carefully, sitting opposite his wheelchair to be at eye level. “Hey Peter. Um, Mr. Hale. I don’t know if you remember, but it’s Isaac? I’m the kid you found in the woods.” 

Peter did remember. That was all he could do, now. Sit and comb through old memories. 

_Dragging the child back to the house wasn’t difficult. It was a skinny little thing, and it was too scared to fight. Or talk. But Peter knew magic when he saw it, and the spark of power he felt was something to be investigated. By coincidence, it was already on the Hale property, where that body was found last full moon. Talia was still trying to uncover which wolf caused that._

_He pulled the boy into their front hallway, where he was greeted by his dear sister._

_“When I asked you to find the source of the screaming, I didn’t expect you to kidnap a child.” She was as stern and regal as ever, even in this ungodly hour of the gray morning._

_“This child here managed to attract the entire earthworm population of the Beacon Hills Preserve. It’s an impressive, if revolting, talent.” He released his hold, allowing it to stumble, terrified, caught between him and Talia with nowhere to run._

_Talia approached it, kneeling to be at eye level. “I know you’re scared,” she told it calmly. “But we can help people like you.”_

_It just looked at her._

_“I think it’s gone mute,” Peter suggested._

_Talia held up a finger to shush him. She placed her hands on the boy’s cheeks, gently tilting his head to meet her gaze._

_“Let’s see if we can’t figure out what happened to you.” Her eyes flashed their Alpha red, but instead of flinching away, the boy’s jaw unhinged. A thin curl of steam twisted out of his gaping mouth. Talia closed her eyes and inhaled, sucking the steam into her own mouth. Peter watched, fascinated, as the little white wisp slipped between Talia’s lips._

_She let the kid go and opened her eyes. “Hello Isaac,” she said with a smile. “I’m Talia Hale.”_

_For the first time since Peter found him, Isaac blinked._

_“Those little creatures weren’t trying to hurt you. You called them to you, asking them to protect you at your brother’s only grave.” Her eyes travelled down to Isaac’s wrist, the one still holding the knife he was too afraid to use. It was colored with a contusion, one that wasn’t from Peter’s hand. Talia wrapped her elegant fingers around it loosely. Ink black pain starting running up over her knuckles. Isaac’s hand unclenched, and the knife fell, landing straight down and embedding itself into the flooring._

_“Your father isn’t going to hurt you anymore.” Talia’s gaze was tender and kind. “We can teach you. You’re one of us.”_

Witches and werewolves don’t get along, _Peter thought._

_The child opened his lips. “Thank you,” he whispered._

Looking at him now, Peter could tell he’d learned to harness that power. He still had that plain edge army knife, tucked into a little scabbard on his belt. The thing was barely more than a letter opener, especially compared to the strength of a werewolf, but Peter knew he could do more damage with it than met the eye.Their emissary had taught him well. 

Derek looked between them. “You’ve met?” 

_Yes, Derek, try to keep up._ Peter hated being silent. It was infuriating, watching all these idiots fumble about while he was stuck in this chair, in this body, fully conscious but trapped, helpless. It was hell. 

“Briefly.” Isaac looked in Peter’s eyes, searching through his Aura. “We didn’t talk.” 

Peter would have smiled at that, if his facial muscles could move. Isaac pulled his chair closer, close enough to reach out and touch Peter. “Okay,” he muttered. “I can’t really ask for your consent, um...that thing Talia did? I’m gonna try it. Because, um…”

Derek spoke up. “Because we need to talk to you, Peter. People are dying, and we need your help.” He swallowed. “ _I_ need your help. Someone killed Laura. Whoever he is, he's an Alpha now... but he's one without a pack, which means he's not as strong. I can take him. But, I have to find him first.” 

Some old ghost of affection for his nephew brewed in Peter’s gut. He couldn’t tell Derek the truth, not yet. Because he needed Derek in his pack, and he really didn’t want to kill him in broad daylight. He’d have to kill the kid, too. It would be a logistical disaster. 

Isaac reached out. “Sorry, if it hurts.” As lightly as he could, he settled his fingers on Peter’s temples, the touch of it stinging the burned area, still a little tender, after all this time. Isaac closed his eyes, and Peter felt his lips part, ever so slightly, just a small enough crack to let a little steam of memory through. But unfortunately for Isaac, Peter was much better at this than he was. And Isaac wasn’t going to get the memory he was looking for. 

He inhaled, breathing in Peter’s steam. 

And Isaac started screaming. 

.-

_Fire._

That was the only thing Isaac could register. Somewhere, in a far away world, someone was tugging at him, pulling his hands away and catching him before he fell to the floor. But the 

_PAIN_

The searing, scorching pain, on every inch of his skin, 

_Flames_

Crackling with acrid 

_Smoke_

And his lungs and eyes stung with it and Isaac was writhing on the carpet. 

_“Isaac!”_ Derek yelled, shaking him. “Oh my god, Isaac!”

It all stopped. Isaac stilled, his fingers running over the carpet of the nursing home. Hesitantly, he brought a hand up to his face. His skin was normal. No burns. 

He was shaking, sweating like he just came out of a night terror. “Fuck,” he breathed. 

Derek hauled him up, helping him sit upright. “What the hell was that?” 

Isaac swallowed, trying to calm his racing heart. “He’s thinking about the fire.” 

“And?” Derek’s eyes were doing that thing again, where his irises moved back and forth rapidly, like he could find an answer by searching someone’s face. _He does that all the time,_ Isaac realized. The guy was constantly playing a game of “Where’s Waldo?” Although, in Derek’s case, it was probably more “Where’s my Will to Live?” 

“And I didn’t really get past that part.” Isaac fought the urge to check for burns again. He could still _feel_ them, like a phantom pain. “The transfer is a lot more vivid than I thought.” 

Derek bit back a disappointed sigh. “Are you okay?” 

Isaac nodded. “I don’t think his head’s coherent enough for me to get anything.” That was mostly an excuse. Isaac was surprised it had worked at all, considering he went in mostly blind. Peter just stared off into the distance, looking completely unaffected by what had just happened. 

“Worth a shot.” Derek pulled Isaac to his feet. “Come on, I’ll take you back.” 

Back at the car, there was a piece of paper slipped under the windshield wiper. Derek grabbed it, unfolding it. When he saw it, he stilled. 

“Did you know about this?” Derek showed him the paper. It was a grainy black and white photo of a deer, with a spiral carved into its side. 

Isaac squinted at it, and shook his head. “We don’t do necropsies.” 

Derek’s brow furrowed. “Someone wanted me to find this.” He got into the car, and Isaac followed suit.

The drive back to the clinic was done in tense silence. 

.- 

“Can I help you?” Deaton asked. Derek could smell the nervousness on him. But there was also something else, something almost like…

Recognition. 

“Derek?” Isaac asked hesitantly behind him. 

The doctor knew something, something he wasn’t letting on. And if he knew who Derek was, maybe he knew the Alpha. Maybe he _was_ the Alpha. 

Derek turned back to Isaac. Either Isaac knew, and had been leading them on a wild goose chase, which Derek would definitely kill him for. Or he _didn’t_ know, and he’d probably do something stupid, like get in the way. 

So Derek turned around and punched him in the jaw. 

“I want to know about the animal you found with the spiral on its side.”

.-


	4. Oobleck

Isaac woke up on the cold floor of the animal clinic, with a hurt face and even more hurt feelings. 

“Prick,” he muttered. He pulled himself up, wincing at the pain in his jaw. His phone buzzed. It was a text from Stiles. 

_ Giant scary alpha at the High School.  _

_ Need extraction.  _

_ Please?  _

Isaac grabbed his knapsack and started running.

.-

When he got there, he found Stiles' jeep wrecked and Derek’s Camaro with the backseat door wide open. Seeing their cars together was almost as drastic a contrast as seeing their personalities mix. The sleek, black badass with the colorful, ungainly noisemaker. 

He spotted Derek’s lifeless body over in the dirt next to the sewer covers. 

“Oh god.” He ran to Derek, skidding to a stop next to him. His eyes were wide open, and there were five bloody claw marks in the back of his jacket. 

He grabbed Derek’s wrist, looking for a pulse. 

Nothing. 

He put the back of his hand up against Derek’s blood stained lips. 

Nothing.

“Fuck.” Isaac could vaguely remember something about wounds from an Alpha not healing as quickly. But aside from the entrance wound, and the being dead, Derek didn’t look too bad. The Alpha could have slashed him up, could have torn him in half, but he didn’t. Which was minorly suspicious, but Isaac filed that away for later. Right now, he needed to find a way to resuscitate him. Isaac rifled through his knacksack until he found a vial of a white, goopy substance, and a spoon. 

It was a bad idea. But it was the best he had. “Sorry dude,” he muttered. He pried open Derek’s mouth and shoved a huge glob of it down Derek’s throat. 

Derek’s eyes snapped open. He managed to get his hands underneath him and lift his head up. The veins around his neck bulged uncomfortably, and he was getting redder in the face by the second. 

Isaac scrambled away as Derek vomited, hacking out Isaac’s miracle cure and bits of his own blood in violent heaves. He finally spit the last of it out into the dirt, glaring at Isaac with wet eyes.

“What the hell was that?” He demanded.

“It’s Oobleck.” Isaac couldn’t help but grin. Derek was  _ alive,  _ damn it.  _ That’s two he owes me,  _ he thought.    
“It triggers your gag reflex, and the coughing brings your heart rate up to speed up healing.” Oobleck was fun because it moved like a liquid, but behaved like a solid when pressure was applied. It wasn’t exactly an oft-used magical substance, but Isaac liked to get creative.

“Oobleck?” Derek raised his eyebrows, struggling to his feet. 

“Cornstarch and water? Didn’t you ever go to summer camp?” Isaac asked. Isaac’s idea of “summer camp” was spending eight hours a day in his elementary school library, but the point still stood. 

“I was raised by werewolves,” he deadpanned. 

“Right. Well, did you get anything out of kidnapping my boss?” Isaac adjusted his knapsack. 

“I’m pretty sure it’s him.” Derek started scanning the school grounds, like he’d be able to catch the shadow of the alpha. 

“Well, you’re wrong.” A low feeling of dread started building in Isaac’s gut. He wasn’t sure how much of Deaton’s past he should divulge. According to Deaton, it was none of it. 

_ “I’m not a part of that world anymore, Isaac. Even if he knew who I was, there would be little I could do to help.” _ That was Deaton’s rationale, anyway. No point in being an emissary if your pack was dead. 

“He got out of my car and then a second later I was stabbed in the back, what do you think happened?” 

“It’s not him,” Isaac said, more emphatically. At Derek’s skeptical look, he realized he was going to have to give something up. “The guy’s been taking care of me since I was ten years old. I think I would have noticed if he was a werewolf.” 

Derek’s face screwed up into something that was part guilt, part confusion. “You could have told me that.” 

“You punched me in the face, asshat.” Isaac pointed at the light bruise to prove his point. 

Derek looked away. “Doesn’t matter now, whoever it is, it’s here. We draw it out, and I fight him.” 

“What? Derek, that’s insane.” 

“You don’t think I can do it?” Derek challenged. 

“I’m not trying to criticize your skills.” Although in all fairness, Isaac did not think very highly of Derek’s skills. He got his ass kicked every single week. “I’m just saying, Omegas don’t fight alphas. Every intrinsic pack instinct would hold you back.” It was an obvious point, one that Isaac hadn’t made up until now because to a wolf, Omega was the equivalent of Little Bitch. Amazing how seeing someone dead can break social boundaries. 

Derek grabbed Isaac and slammed him, genuinely, angrily,  _ slammed  _ him into the side of the school, hard enough to jar Isaac’s very human brain in his very human skull. 

“I am  _ not  _ an omega,” he growled, using his forearm to keep Isaac pinned, his eyes flashing blue. 

Isaac tried to control his breathing. He forced himself to look straight into Derek’s rage-filled eyes. “It’s not an insult, Derek.” He swallowed thickly. “It’s a fact.” 

Derek’s eyes hardened, and Isaac saw a real pain there. He wondered if he pushed too far, if Derek would just give into the instinct to kill him. 

Derek released his hold and backed away. “I  _ have  _ to do something! It killed my sister, and Scott and Stiles are trapped in there with it.” 

Isaac waited for his heart rate to return to normal. “Wait, is he gonna kill them? I thought he needed Scott in his pack.” 

“He’s not gonna kill Scott.” Derek met Isaac’s eyes, the rage replaced by a subtle hint of fear. “He’s gonna make Scott kill Stiles.” 

.-

_ Found Derek. He’s alive.  _ Isaac messaged Stiles. Derek peered obnoxiously over his shoulder. 

_ Get him out of there.  _

_ He says he can fight it,  _

_ Scott told everyone he was a serial killer. _

_ And then I called my dad.  _

_ He has to be gone before the cops get here.  _

“That little fucker,” Derek seethed. “Come one.” He pulled Isaac along, practically shoving him into the Camaro as Isaac sent a quick  _ You’re both idiots  _ over the phone. 

“Time to lay low again,” Derek muttered once they were clear of the school. Isaac tried not to notice how tired he sounded.

“Don’t go too far this time, please?” Isaac asked. “The next full moon is coming, and we’re gonna need your help.” 

“Can’t help you if I’m in a jail cell,” Derek pointed out. 

“Stiles’ dad is the sheriff, the kid’s been evading the law since he was in diapers. You get caught, he’ll find a way to break you out.” 

Derek hummed noncommittally. 

They drove in silence for a while. Isaac wasn’t really sure where they were going. Derek spoke up first. 

“You met my mother.” There was a tightness in his voice as he said it. 

Isaac looked over at Derek, who was keeping his expression carefully guarded. “She saved me.” 

Isaac hadn’t known Talia for very long, but she’d made an impression. And Deaton...Deaton loved her, and some of that love leached into Isaac, almost through osmosis, and there were some days when her absence left a hollowness in his gut. Isaac visited the cemetery a lot when he was a child. Camden wasn’t there, he’d been cremated, and Isaac wasn’t sure what his father had done with him after that. But something about the gentle hum of the dead comforted Isaac. And he never felt more at peace than when he sat on Talia’s grave. 

“Hi, Mrs. Hale.” There were so many nights he’d used his little, scrawny child limbs to climb the fences of the cemetery and say those three words. Sometimes tears would follow, sometimes hours of ramblings, sometimes just Isaac’s contemplative silence. 

“Saved you from what?” Derek’s hand tightened on the steering wheel. 

Isaac sighed. “Not long before the fire, my brother died. And my father left town, leaving me behind. Peter found me and brought me to Talia.” 

“She never told me about you,” Derek muttered. 

_ There was a lot she never told you,  _ Isaac thought. Because he knew that Talia protected her kids, especially her younger ones, from the ugliness of her world. Deaton had tried to protect Isaac, too, but Isaac had seen enough ugly already, and they figured out quickly that he would just find it for himself. 

“She found me a home. Deaton took me in. He knows about my magic, he tried to help me learn to use it.” 

That answer seemed to satisfy Derek well enough. 

“She was a remarkable woman,” Isaac said. Because he felt like it needed to be said, because there weren’t that many people left alive who truly understood what that meant. 

“Yes.” Derek swallowed thickly. “Yes she was.”


	5. Lunatic

Stiles tapped his pencil nervously on the lab table. Mr. Harris had separated him and Scott, but his friendship (acquaintance? Camaraderie?) with Isaac had yet to be discovered, allowing him to sit next to the witch without their teacher’s interference. 

“You miss your dose this morning?” Isaac asked him. Coming from anyone else, it would have been an insensitive jab at his disorder. But when Isaac said it, Stiles knew it wasn’t really a question. Somehow, Isaac had  _ known  _ he’d forgotten to take his adderall, that he definitely needed it now but with everything going on in his life he’d also forgotten to refill the spare in his locker, so, he was stuck without it. 

_ I hate full moons.  _ And this was only his  _ second  _ one, although it was really his first, because the first full moon was like five days after Scott was bitten and Stiles hadn’t done much that night except do a lot of frantic driving. He’s pretty sure his jeep was literally crying for help by the time Stiles found Scott wandering shirtless through the forest, like a proper wolfman. 

“Why do you even ask if you already know?” Stiles tried to pay attention to the chemistry lesson, but it was mostly a lost cause. 

Isaac shrugged. “I’m an empath, not a mind reader.” 

“You have a very confusing skill set, you know that?” At some point, Stiles had switched from tapping to twirling. 

“Says the lacrosse player slash detective slash Yoda.” Isaac smirked at him. 

Stiles scoffed. “Ah, yes, the three pillars of the classic Stiles.” His brow furrowed. “How can you tell?” He asked. “When I’m on my meds or not.” 

“You get this bluish tinge around you,” Isaac waved his finger aimlessly around Stile’s head, like that could explain it. “From the amphetamines.” 

“Huh.” Stiles bit his lip, pondering. He pointed his eraser towards the front of the room, at his best friend. “What do you see around Scott?” 

Isaac squinted. “Anger,” he said finally. “More than usual, the moon is fraying at his control.” 

“Great,” Stiles muttered. 

Isaac reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a very familiar looking bottle. He discreetly slid it across the table to Stiles, who shot him a look of perplexed gratitude. 

“I know the local dealer,” he explained. “We got a plan for tonight?”

“Not a good one,” Stiles answered, dry swallowing a little blue pill. “But what else is new?”

.-

“You kissed her, Scott, you kissed  _ Lydia.”  _ Stiles’ anger wafted down the stairs as Isaac entered the McCall house. Stiles had called him for backup, but Isaac didn’t have much more experience with full moons than he did, at least not with a bitten. Isaac ran up as Stiles continued his tirade. 

“And, you know, the past three hours, I've been thinking, "It's probably just the full moon," you know? "He doesn't even know what he's doing, and tomorrow, he'll be totally back to normal. He probably won't even remember what a complete dumbass he's been-- a son of a bitch, a freaking unbelievable piece of crap friend--” 

Scott interjected as soon as Isaac was next to Stiles. “She kissed me.”

Isaac winced at the shock and betrayal in Stiles. He gaped in disbelief. 

“...What?”

Scott grew a wicked, menacing grin that looked so out of place on the usually kind boy’s features. “I didn't kiss her-- she kissed me. She would have done a lot more, too. You should have seen the way she had her hands all over me. She would have done anything I wanted.” Scott’s voice turned to an enraged shout. 

“Anything!”

Stiles flinched and backed out of the room, closing the door behind him. 

“Cuff him to the radiator? That’s the plan?” Isaac raised an eyebrow. 

“You got a better one?” Stiles scrubbed a hand over his face tiredly. 

“Not really,” Isaac slung his knapsack over and pulled out a glass vial, filled with a glimmering, rocky substance. “But I do have a contingency.” The two of them sat next to each other, backs against the wall of the McCall hall, and under slightly less heavy circumstances Isaac would have pointed out the poetic possibilities of that rhyme. Stiles just looked so goddamn  _ tired.  _ The two of them didn’t speak, they just did their best to settle in for what would be a very long night. 

_ I have to make sure he sleeps,  _ Isaac thought. 

Scott started to beg. And Isaac could practically taste the guilt and regret dripping off Stiles. 

“Please let me out. It's the full moon, I swear. You know I wouldn't do any of this on purpose. Please, Stiles, let me out. It's starting to hurt.” 

Isaac pulled a little thermos out of his bag and wordlessly handed it to Stiles. It was iced coffee, black, just like he liked it. He pulled out a separate thermos for himself, which was a vanilla latte, because Isaac was a little bitch like that and he would readily admit it. They sipped as Scott’s voice grew more desperate. 

“It's not like the first time. It's the full moon... it's Allison breaking up with me... I know... that it's not just taking a break. She broke up with me. And it's killing me. I feel completely hopeless.” 

Stiles squeezed his eyes shut and forced himself to exhale.  _ He’s trying to trick you. It’s the moon, it’s just the moon. Only eight more hours and then it’s sunrise.  _

“Just,  _ please _ \-- let me out.”

Stiles and Isaac turned to each other. Their eyes locked. “I think it’s time for that contingency,” Stiles said, his voice thick. 

Isaac pulled out his vial. “Okay.” He opened the door and took one look at Scott, at his bleeding wrist as he struggled from the cuff that was barely still on, and swallowed. 

“Sorry, man.” 

Isaac smashed the vial onto the floor, and the white crystals exploded around the room. Scott inhaled lungfuls of it, choking on the bits of dust clouding around him. Isaac quickly ran out and shut the door behind him.

Scott started screaming then, a primal, guttural scream, and Isaac tensed. 

“What the hell did you do?” Stiles scrambled up at the sound, moving for the door. Isaac blocked it, holding up a finger as if to say  _ wait a second.  _

Eventually, the sound died out, replaced by a low, exhausted heaving. Isaac moved out of the way and allowed Stiles to crack the door open. 

Scott was curled in a fetal position on the floor, the metal cuff snapped in two, its useless pieces flung across the hardwood planks. His muscles twitched and spasmed ever so often, and his face was scrunched up in pain, eyes closed. 

Stiles gently closed the door, turning to face Isaac in the hallway. His face and aura were contorted in sympathy, but there was also relief, now that Scott was basically decommissioned. He slumped back in his position against the McCall Hall Wall, and Isaac followed suit. 

The put-upon human took a sip of his coffee. “What was that?” he asked quietly. 

“Crystal Meth,” Isaac answered. He continued at Stiles’ questioning look. “It stimulates the nervous system, disrupts the shift. His body will detox, but it will take a while. He’ll be like that until sunrise.” 

Stiles' eyes darted back and forth as he looked at Isaac’s face, like he was looking for something. 

“You’re terrifying,” Stiles said finally. Isaac’s lip twitched in response. They sat in silence for a while. 

The shifty eyes struck Isaac with Déjà vu.  _ God, he’s so much like Derek sometimes,  _ Isaac thought.  _ It’s unnerving.  _ At a first glance, the two of them couldn’t be more different. One was a skinny, smart mouthed, expressive ball of anxiety. The other was a stoic, stone-cold menacing werewolf. But when Isaac looked at the both of them, and distilled them to their essential essence, he saw a kid, and a slightly older kid, who were both awkward loners, who both covered up a jagged wound of grief with a salty exterior, who matched each other’s sarcasm and pushed each other’s buttons and glared down danger and death with the kind of recklessness that came with nihilism, with the distinct ache that came from having seen too much in a young body.

Now was probably not the time for Isaac to assess that, but his mind drifted to it anyway as he watched Stiles fiddle with the lid of the thermos. Stiles was captivating, he realized, and there was a gentle sort of affection that overtook him as he looked at his warm brown eyes. But friends were a bit of a new concept for Isaac, romance very much so. In fact, when you’re an empath, you learn to understand everyone’s feelings except your own. Isaac could play the part well, he could flirt and lick and fuck as well as any gay kid on the block, but he didn’t do romance. He didn’t bring people home. He didn’t call them back. He went to a club with a fake ID on the occasion that his teenage libido asked him to blow off steam. He worked alone, he slept alone, and that was that. 

And here Stiles was, breaking all his rules. And Isaac realized, sitting next to him in the glow of the hall light, he might be willing to embrace the fragile concept of friendship with him. But he had a feeling that when it came to the concept of hearts, Stiles was taken, and Isaac had nothing to give.

“Where the hell did you get Crystal meth?” Stiles asked. 

“I made it.” 

His eyebrows shot up. “Out of what?” 

Isaac cracked a smile. “Adderall.” 

.-

“Guys,” Derek nudged Stiles with his toe. Him and Isaac were both asleep against the wall of the Hallway outside Scott’s bedroom. Isaac’s head rested in the crook of Stiles' shoulder. Derek had come over because in his life, No news was almost certainly a bad sign. But maybe he needed to rethink his philosophies, because he could smell Scott in the other room, and something that was  _ definitely  _ not a legal substance, and the boys on the floor in front of him looked unharmed. 

It was one in the morning, and as far as Derek could tell, Scott hadn’t killed anyone tonight. Or attempted to kill anyone. Derek could sense that his body was too jumbled by the neurochemical in the room to shift, and if the alpha called him out, at best he’d get a human Scott Mccall high on Crystal Meth, which he doubted anyone wanted. 

He nudged Stiles’ leg with his boot again. “Hey. Get up.” 

Stiles’ eyes snapped open and he flailed around. The back of his hand smacked Isaac in the face. The other boy woke up with a similar amount of grace, which is to say, none at all. They both scrambled apart, clearly surprised they’d ended up entangled in the first place. 

“Hey Derek,” Stiles addressed him with forced casualness. 

“You’re supposed to watch him,” Derek nodded to the bedroom, hiding the amusement in his voice. 

Stiles narrowed his eyes and turned to the boy. “You were on watch last.” 

“What? No, you were on watch last,” Isaac protested. 

“No I wasn’t,” Stiles showed Isaac his watch to prove it.

Isaac’s jaw snapped shut. “I...might have been on watch last.” 

Derek’s eyes flitted between the two of them.  _ Teenagers.  _ “I’ll check on him.” 

He eased the door of the bedroom open gently. Scott was curled in a fetal position, hands over his ears. Derek could smell pain on him, nothing too agonizing, but it was a constant ache, the kind that came from overexertion. The heartbreak was there too, along with confusion and bloodlust and guilt and anger all at once, swirling in this one clenched up body. Derek had the urge to touch the boy and take his pain, but he knew that raw sting in his muscles was keeping him human, and right now, that was the best they could do. 

_ He’s got a lot to learn,  _ Derek thought. A sudden heaviness clouded his mind. 

_ And I have to teach him.  _


	6. Get a Leg Up

Derek switched sides. 

Peter Hale was the alpha, and he convinced his nephew to help him on his revenge mission against everyone involved with the Hale House fire, up to and including the Argents. 

Isaac didn’t know Allison. But he did know Scott. And if Scott was going to frantically call him and ask him to see if Derek or Peter showed up at the Hale House, because he was busy trying to simultaneously protect his mom and his girlfriend’s entire family and apparently Jackson was becoming an issue himself, Isaac wasn’t going to say no.

“Hey boys.” Isaac was sitting on the crumbling bottom stair of the Hale House. 

Jackson stared at him in disbelief. “ _ You’re  _ in on this, too?” 

“I have a lot of interesting talents beyond giving you chemistry answers.” Isaac stood. “You still owe me for that last homework set.” 

Jackson rolled his eyes, pulling a crumpled hundred dollar bill out of his jacket pocket. He flicked it at Isaac. “Keep the change.” 

Isaac pocketed the bill and smiled. “Glad we had this talk. Now walk away.” 

“Isaac,” Derek warned. 

“What, Derek, what?” Isaac demanded. “You want me to step aside, you’re gonna have to kill me. Because I am not letting you hurt this kid.” 

“Kid?” Jackson looked disgusted at the word. 

“What makes you think I want to hurt him?” Derek tilted his head. “Maybe I’m just giving him what he wants.” 

“Jackson,” Isaac said, more forcefully this time, “Run.” 

Jackson’s eyes flitted between the two of them, unsure of who to trust. He started to back away. “Look, I don’t know what’s --” 

Derek grabbed his arm. “No, you’re not going anywhere.” 

Isaac clicked his tongue. “That was a mistake.” 

And then all hell broke loose. 

A werewolf fighting a witch is an awkward affair. It’s like watching two people try to do a partner dance with two different sets of moves. Derek was all lunges and slashes and growls. Wolves fight like predators. Witches fight like the fleas that nest in their fur. All Isaac had to do was stay in Derek’s blind spots, jabbing at his back and sides with his army knife, letting Derek tire himself out, throwing his weight around.

Jackson had the good sense to run. But Derek was fast, and Isaac wasn’t sure how determined he’d be to catch up with him. So he kept going. Derek wasn’t fighting to kill, he knew that. But he was getting angry. 

Isaac slipped up. He lodged his blade between two of Derek’s ribs, and it got stuck. He spent too long trying to pull it out, and Derek took an opportunity to elbow him in the face. Isaac went down hard onto the burnt out wood flooring. There would be splinters in his future. Unpleasant ones.

Derek pulled the blade out on his own, tossing aside before sending a well aimed kick at Isaac’s chest. He grabbed a fistful of Isaac’s shirt, hauling him upward, probably with the intention to sock him in the face until his brains turned to pudding. 

Isaac smiled up at Derek’s angry scowl, his bloody teeth glinting in the moonlight. “Go on. Do it.” 

Derek’s fingers turned to claws, ripping into Isaac’s shirt, a few of them grazing lightly across the skin of his chest. His eyes flashed blue. “Don’t tempt me.” 

“Derek, stop!” Scott burst in through the shell of an entranceway. 

Derek spared Isaac one last withering look before dropping him roughly onto the ground. “You shouldn’t be fighting us this hard, Scott.” 

Scott glowered. “You shouldn’t go after my friends.” 

“So Jackson’s your friend, now, is he?” Derek scoffed. “Him? Allison? They’re not worth protecting.” 

Anger radiated off of Scott as he prepared to shift. “They are to me.” 

Isaac sensed some werewolf-on-werwolf action brewing, which sounded so much more horrible in his head than he meant it to. He scrambled over to grab his army knife before getting the hell out of the way. But before the fighting started, Derek suddenly stilled. He could hear something coming. 

“Cover your eyes!” He yelled. 

The first flashbolt went through the window, embedding itself in the charred railing before exploding. Isaac ducked and covered. 

The bullets started raining down soon after. Scott threw himself in front of Isaac, taking a half-dozen in the chest before collapsing. 

Derek fully shifted. He reached down Scott’s pants and grabbed his phone. “Get him out of here,” he growled. 

Isaac didn’t need to be told twice. 

\- 

Isaac hauled an unconscious Scott onto the examination table with considerable difficulty. Dragging the kid out of the woods had been bad enough. Thankfully, Deaton had let him borrow the car to get to the Hale house. 

Derek had walked into gunfire. Isaac tried not to think about that. If he wasn’t dead, Isaac owed him a hell of an apology. Then again, Derek was the one who decided to join up with a homicidal furry, so maybe they were even. 

Isaac peeled off Scott’s ruined shirt. The bullet wounds were oozing a black ectoplasm, and refusing to heal. Isaac gently prodded one of them with his knife to get a few droplets of the stuff onto the flat of his blade. He gave it a lick, to gauge the taste. 

Which is exactly when Stiles ran into the room. 

“Hey, Melissa’s safe at home -- oh my  _ god.”  _

Isaac’s tongue was still completely out, frozen halfway up the knife, dangerously close to getting sliced by the sharp edge. 

_ Fuck it.  _ Isaac maintained direct eye contact with Stiles while he dragged his tongue slowly and deliberately, catching every droplet. 

Stiles looked completely horrified. 

“It’s lead,” Isaac told him. “Not wolfsbane. So we won’t have to burn him out.” Isaac started pulling out his equipment. Werewolf medicine was a hell of a lot simpler. Isaac didn’t need much more than some forceps to dig out the bullets, some gauze to soak up the fluid, and a tray to drop them in.

Stiles shook his head violently. “I’m never going to unsee that.” He gestured at Isaac’s general self. 

Isaac just smiled. “Get over here, I need you to hold him down.” 

Stiles managed to snap back to reality. “Why isn’t he healing?” he asked, placing hesitant hands over Scott’s bare shoulders. 

“Heavy metals can disrupt biochemical processes.” Isaac readied his forceps. 

“Didn’t think that applied to werewolves,” Stiles muttered. 

Scott made a pained noise, jerking slightly. 

“We gotta keep it from spreading too much, right?” Stiles looked down at Scott worriedly. “If the lead’s leaching into him, it’ll be harder for him to heal.” 

“Easiest way to do that is to take them out.” Isaac started working on the first bullet. “Or slow his heartbeat, so it doesn’t circulate as much.” Doing both was preferable. Isaac shrugged internally. He’d already embarrassed himself in front of Stiles today. Isaac slipped off his sneaker and swung his lanky left leg up over the table, over Scott’s head, letting his stockinged foot rest squarely on his neck. He applied a little pressure, cutting Scott’s oxygen just enough to slow his pulse. He tried not to think about the painful stretch in his groin. 

Isaac was too focused on getting out the bullets and trying not to topple over to make eye contact with Stiles, but he was pretty sure he’d see the same horrified stare. 

“I’m gonna need therapy after tonight,” Stiles muttered. 

Isaac wrenched the first bullet out. Scott let out a strangled cry. Isaac felt the vibration of it through his sock. Stiles gripped Scott’s hand, doing his best to hold him still. 

“It’s okay, buddy. You’re alright.” Stiles controlled the waver in his voice. “You’re gonna be fine. You’re a werewolf, remember? Not a teen wolf. A werewolf.” 

Deaton walked in on the three of them, a bizarre mass of tangled limbs, and promptly walked back out. Scott was in good, if unorthodox, hands. 

Isaac gave Stiles the gauze and rubbing alcohol, because he had a free hand. “Clean those up, would you?” He had four of them out, now, plinking the compressed metal into the tray they normally used for injections. 

Stiles gently dabbed away the excess ectoplasm, grimacing slightly at the stickiness. “You look like shit, by the way.” He was referring to the smattering of cuts on Isaac’s face, and the drying, cracked lines of blood from his nose he’d yet to wash away. Isaac could also feel the sting of Derek’s claws in his chest. The wounds were superficial, but Stiles could probably see the blood soaking through his shirt. 

“Staking out the Hale House turned out to be a good idea. Derek took Jackson there, to kill him.” 

“ _ Derek  _ did that to you?” Stiles looked a lot more surprised than he should have, considering how often Derek threatened him with physical violence. 

“This was him being nice.” Isaac pulled the last bullet out. The wounds were closing. Slowly, but still, it was progress. Isaac carefully extracted his foot, managing to swing it back onto the floor without pulling too many leg muscles. “Scott’s gonna be fine, he just needs rest.” 

Stiles looked like he wanted to say more, but he dropped the subject. He just nodded, shedding his flannel and folding it into a little makeshift pillow for Scott. 

“You should go home.” Isaac slipped out of his hoodie and draped it over Scott like a blanket. 

Stiles gave him a look like he was seeing Isaac for the first time. 

“You  _ both  _ should go home,” Deaton cut in, startling the two boys. “Take the car back to the apartment, Isaac, I’ll spend the night here.”

Isaac’s eyes softened when he looked at Deaton. “Thanks, Doc.” 

Isaac and Stiles were just outside the clinic. “You call him Doc?” Stiles asked.

Isaac turned. “Yes…?” 

“Derek said he was, like, your guardian.” 

Isaac shrugged. “Didn’t want to call him Dad. And I’m definitely not using Alan.” 

Stiles let out a startled laugh. “His first name is  _ Alan?”  _

“Yep. Don’t tell him I told you, you haven’t unlocked his tragic backstory yet.”

They were about to part ways for their separate cars when Stiles reached out to touch Isaac’s wrist. 

“Thank you, for this. And for, you know, stopping Derek. Jackson’s a dick but I don’t think Scott could do the whole ‘Team Captain’ thing without some help.” 

Isaac’s lip quirked up at that. “Yep. Lacrosse is always my first priority.” 

Stiles returned his smile. “Good, that’s how it should be.” 

Their eyes stayed locked for a moment longer than they should have. 

“Seriously, though, thank you.” Stiles looked away first, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He was shivering a bit, without his flannel. 

“Thank you for standing in it with me,” Isaac told him. 

They parted ways feeling a little warmer. 


	7. Knives Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do touch on abuse and torture in this chapter, so, fair warning.

“The infamous Kate Argent,” Isaac tried to keep his voice smooth. His hand curled around the totem in his pocket. She didn’t look that different since the last time he saw her. A little more controlled, maybe, but he could still see that same fire behind her eyes, that same easy confidence in her stance. When he was nine, he’d found that comforting. Now it just screamed  _ dangerous.  _

Moonlight filtered into the entranceway, catching on a swirling of old dust and ash. Kate stepped further into it, so Isaac could see her face. 

“I remember you.” She studied him for a moment and smiled at the image of a much younger, scrawnier Isaac, wide eyed and alone in a police station, waiting to give a statement while his father vomited into the Sheriff’s trash can. “The kid who found his brother’s body on a full moon.” 

“Memorable night,” Isaac quipped.

“Thought your family had left town after that,” Kate started to approach him again, slowly, in the way one would circle a skittish prey. 

“Half of it did.” Isaac mimicked her movements, allowing her to draw him further into the house.  _ If she’s here, I have to be right. Derek has to be here, too.  _

“So how’d a nice young man like you end up in a dive like this?” Kate waved a dismissive hand around the destruction. 

“I’m looking for a friend. You might know him, about yay high, dark hair, blue eyes on occasion?” He put up a hand that greatly overestimated Derek’s height. 

Kate chuckled. “Wouldn’t think you’d want to be friends with someone like him.” 

“I don’t have quite the species prejudice that you do.” She was much closer now. Too close. He tried to side step her. She blocked him with ease. 

“It’s not completely unfounded. Seeing you, all alone, knowing that a werewolf ruined your life? That was the final straw for me. I promised I’d make it right, and I did.” 

Isaac’s eyes went hard. “My brother is  _ dead _ . There’s no way to make that right, especially not killing eleven more people.” 

This time Kate let some venom leak into her laughter. “People? Sweetheart, they’re monsters. You saw what they did to Camden.”

Kate bent forward, whispering to him. 

“How did you identify him, again?” 

Isaac swallowed. This was not a conversation he wanted to have. Now or ever. 

“With a birthmark,” he said finally. 

“Right, with a birthmark. Because his face was just a mess of slashed up blood and bone.” She had the audacity to smile again, teeth glinting in the moonlight. “How many nights do you close your eyes and see that?” 

Isaac forced himself to meet her eyes. “All of them.” He willed himself not to fidget under her gaze, watching as she took him in, calculating, assessing, wondering if she was looking at a threat or…

an opportunity. 

“What if I let you in on a little secret?” She asked him coyly. 

His hand tightened in his pocket. He felt backed up, cornered. He couldn’t take Kate in a fight. His only options were to turn back and run out of the house, or to sit and play...whatever game this was. 

“Your brother was killed by a beta, a young one, that hadn’t learned control. Want to guess what happened to him?” 

_ You should have called for backup,  _ he chided himself. Not that it would have mattered. Scott was busy protecting Allison, and Stiles was busy protecting Scott. Isaac didn’t take priority. Apparently Derek didn’t either, given the stellar job those two had done looking for him. Isaac hadn’t exactly been on the ball about that either but in his defense, pulling half a dozen bullets out of Scott had been a little distracting. 

“You killed him?’ Isaac guessed. 

“No, hon, I fucked him.” 

Isaac suppressed a gag.

“And he wasn’t in that fire, because I keep my promises.” She reached out to touch Isaac’s shoulder, smirking as he tensed to keep himself from flinching. 

“I’m gonna help you make it right, because you’re gonna get a shot at revenge.” 

.-

Isaac did his best to control his shock when he saw Derek. Objectively, he knew that torture would be in the Argent’s wheelhouse. But he’d never actually...

“Did you guys build the dungeon, or was the dungeon already here?” Isaac couldn’t decide which was weirder. 

Kate just shrugged noncommittally. 

Derek kept his head bent down, not looking at either of them.  _ Could he hear us upstairs?  _

The kid looked like hell, covered in a thin sheen of sweat, exhaustion wracking his limbs. The room still had the tang of singed flesh, and the metallic hint of blood. Isaac could see the echo of ragged screams and writhing muscles in his aura. Which meant Derek had been chained up, shocked, beaten, and stewing in his own stench for about...twenty-four hours. 

_ God, we are bad friends,  _ Isaac thought. 

Kate tapped her fingers on the volt dial, the one hooked up to a bundle of wires that connected a circuit through Derek’s fingers and out his side. Isaac fought the urge to step forward and catch her hand, to keep her from turning that dial and hurting Derek more than she already had, because seeing that might actually make him vomit. 

_ Oh hon, I fucked him.  _

Argents really did go above and beyond. 

“Rather convenient, you showing up here. We were just going to kill him, which would have been a shame.” Kate smiled again. Isaac was starting to really hate that smile. 

“You kept him out of the fire.” Because Kate had to know that Derek wasn’t in the house. She wasn’t the kind to make such an egregious oversight. Then again, she did let Laura slip, too. “Why, so I’d have a chance to kill him? I was  _ ten _ .” 

“I know, but you’d grow into it. Your brother was magic, figured you’d follow in his footsteps. What’s your totem?” She asked. 

Isaac reluctantly pulled his dagger out of where he’d been keeping it in his jacket pocket. 

Derek’s eyes flitted up now, looking at the blade, surprised. 

_ Does he think I’m gonna use it on him?  _ Isaac wondered. 

“Boy after my own heart,” Kate nodded with approval, and Isaac felt a little sick, because the last thing he wanted in the world was Kate Argent’s approval. “Well go ahead then.” Kate gestured to Derek. “He’s all yours.” 

“I don’t know if it’s him,” Isaac muttered. He could feel Derek’s gaze on him now, trying to catch his eyes. 

“Come on, sweetheart, you’ve got magic. You could always use a truth spell. Those work on werewolves, right?” She asked, knowing full well what the answer was. 

Magic worked better on werewolves than it did on humans. Part of the reason why werewolves and witches tended not to get along, why one of them had smelled his brother doing magic on a full moon and killed him purely on instinct. That kind of raw energy manipulation didn’t come naturally to Isaac. But Camden could do it. Camden was  _ brilliant  _ at it, and it made him dangerous. 

Isaac and Camden’s relationship had been...complicated. 

_ “Get out of the Freezer, Isaac,” Camden said.  _

_ “I can’t! I can’t, you locked it!”  _

_ “Stop crying,” his father slammed a fist on the door inches from his head. “Focus.”  _

_ There was blood all over his fingers, his nails shredded from scratching. “Just let me out!”  _

_ “You have everything you need to get out.” It was Camden’s voice again. “Remember your spark, Isaac, remember that magic moves through matter. There’s metal in your blood. There’s metal in this lock. Connect to it. Make it obey you.”  _

_ Isaac screamed and thrashed, feeling like the air was getting thinner and more stale by the second.  _

_ I’m gonna die in here, they’re going to let me die.  _

Camden’s death broke their father, who had been barely hanging on after their mother. He left Isaac behind, left him alone at the mercy of Beacon Hills, and without Deaton...he probably wouldn’t be standing here. 

But killing Derek wouldn’t make any of that right. 

“Isaac--” The urgency in Derek’s voice snapped him out of his trance. 

“Shush,” Kate chided. “Let the man make his choice.” 

_ Do I want to know?  _ Because Derek could always just lie to him, tell him that Kate was lying, and Isaac would never be able to tell. This would be his only chance to know, really know, if Derek had killed his brother. 

He forced himself to step forward. Once, twice, until he was finally close enough to Derek to touch him. The rig they had him in exaggerated their height difference, leaving Derek’s most vulnerable areas exposed right at his eye level. The fear and the tension licked at him like a flame. Isaac hated it. 

_ Let the man make his choice.  _

Kate had taken a gamble with him. And she was confident he’d choose what she wanted him to. 

“Isaac, don’t.” It was meant to be a command. It didn’t come out like one. 

“Sorry for this.” 

Isaac took out his totem and plunged the blade into Derek’s stomach. 


	8. Howl to the Moon

The roar he let out was almost deafening. Isaac left the knife in and leapt backward, getting as far out of the way as he could. 

“What the hell did you do?!” Kate yelled, but it was too late. Derek had already ripped through both the cuffs. In one swift motion, he grabbed Kate and banged her head onto the table, knocking her out cold. With a small wince, he pulled Isaac’s knife out and let it clatter next to the voltage controller, still glistening with blood. 

“Power spell?” Derek asked.

Isaac nodded, stumbling over to get his totem. He was starting to feel woozy. In giving Derek the power to break free, he’d given up some of his own. It would wear off, eventually, but right now he was dead on his feet.

_ Don’t throw up.  _ He willed himself to swallow the bile, the taste of it burning his throat. He could feel his hands going clammy, trembling as he slid his still bloody knife back into his pocket, unable to muster the energy to clean it off. The migraine was setting in, and Isaac knew he would be mostly useless for the rest of the night. 

“You alright?” 

Derek had pulled his shirt and jacket back on. He put a steadying hand on Isaac’s shoulder, to keep him from toppling under the weight of his own brain. Isaac could feel pain radiating off of the touch, and realized that it was to keep Derek upright as much as it was him. 

Isaac squeezed his eyes shut and drew in a breath. “Yeah,” he exhaled. “Energy has to come from somewhere.” 

He turned back to Derek, whose expression lay caught between guilt and surprise. 

“Thanks,” he said finally. “We should go. Before she wakes up.” 

The two of them hauled each other out of the basement as best they could. 

.-

At some point in the tunnel, the knife wound sent a phantom pain through Derek’s stomach. He winced, his step faltering. 

Pain is in the mind. Healing physically didn’t erase all the damage. 

Isaac did his best to support him, weak as he was. He grimaced in sympathy. “Sorry about that.” Isaac did sound genuinely sorry about stabbing him. Isaac was a lot like Stiles in some ways, clever, annoying as hell, but somehow still ending up on Derek’s list of Allies. Isaac had to have been smart enough to know that if he did the Truth Spell, Kate would pounce on it in a second, asking him where to find Peter. And he didn’t think that Isaac would ever fall for something like that. 

Then again, Kate was good at sinking her hooks into teenage boys. And in the split second when Isaac stabbed him, before he felt the power coursing through him, the shock of betrayal hurt more than the metal. 

He had doubted Isaac, well and truly, and maybe some of that was part of Kate’s plan as well. But Isaac had stayed true, and for that, Derek respected him a little bit more. There was a faint coppery smell of old blood in the air and Derek felt a little bad about the fading cuts he left on Isaac’s face and chest. 

“I didn’t kill your brother,” He hoped Isaac would believe that, had known that all along, but Isaac had just as much of a right to doubt him. 

Isaac simply tugged him along. He didn’t speak again until they were above ground. 

"Your eyes are blue,” Isaac wasn’t looking at him as he said it. “I know what that means.” 

Derek sighed internally. “I’ve taken an innocent life. But it wasn’t Camden.” 

Isaac looked up, surprised. “I never told you his name.” 

“I was listening.” 

Isaac seemed to shrink into himself, at that. “Oh.” 

“Hey, listen to me. What Kate did? She used you to justify it, but she’s a killer. That’s not your fault.” 

Isaac swallowed. “Thanks.” 

Derek nodded in return. 

.-

When they were trudging up through the woods, a howl reverberated through the trees. Derek tilted his head, listening. It was Scott, definitely Scott. 

“You hear something?” Isaac asked, leaning against a trunk to catch his breath. 

“Scott’s calling.” 

“Is he in trouble?” 

“Knowing him?” Derek shrugged. “Probably.” 

Peter definitely would have heard that. Scott was still his Beta, after all. But despite being pack, Derek knew that the two of them were on opposite sides. Which left him having to choose. 

Scott was a good kid. And although Derek would never admit it, he cared about what happened to him. He knew what it was like, to lose your first love. Hell, he knew what it was like to  _ kill  _ your first love. And as much hate as he had for the Argents, he the last thing he wanted was to see Scott turn out like him. 

But Peter was his uncle. And for many years before that, he was his closest friend. 

_ But he killed Laura.  _

That fact always came up at him like a brick wall. Peter was a Hale, he was family, he was, for all intents and purposes, his alpha. But Laura was his alpha first. Laura was the one who took care of him, after the fire, the only person who cared about him for six years. He watched as she chased cold leads, looking for the arsonist, knowing full well who it was but being too much of a coward to tell her. Always thinking  _ I’ll tell her soon,  _ and then her investigation took her back to Beacon Hills, and she was dead. 

_ But the Argents sawed her in half.  _

And it was Peter, not Scott, who was going to kill the Argents. 

“I didn’t kill Kate,” he muttered to himself, wondering at his own restraint. 

“You were saving her for Peter.” Isaac absently picked at the tree bark. “Beta instinct.” 

“I hate that.” And he did, genuinely. After the fire, Laura, nearly dying of wolfsbane poisoning, and getting his ass kicked in his own house, nearly dying at the school, getting his ass kicked at the hospital, the past few months had done more than enough to show him how much he  _ hated  _ feeling powerless. His little stint in Kate’s torture dungeon was the final straw. 

“I’m gonna kill him.” 

“Wait, who - “ 

Derek interrupted Isaac with a howl of his own, one so powerful he shifted, fully, arching his back and letting his claws seep out. 

Scott and Peter were both coming to him. And he knew exactly who he would fight with. 

.-

Peter was dead by the end of the night. 

And Derek was an alpha.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've written more for this fic (Like, 30k words more) which will come out eventually, once I manage to tie the whole thing together. If you've made it this far, thanks for sticking with it. Hope it made you smile. It's definitely a whimsical one.

**Author's Note:**

> I had a lot of fun writing this, glad to finally send it out into the world.


End file.
